Years ago, when Johnny Carson was the host of The Tonight Show, he interviewed an eight-year-old boy. The young man was asked to appear because he had rescued two friends in a coal mine outside his hometown in West Virginia. As Johnny questioned the boy, it became apparent to him and the audience that the young man was a Christian. So Johnny asked him if he attended Sunday school. When the boy said he did, Johnny inquired, "What are you learning in Sunday school?" "Last week," came his reply," our lesson was about when Jesus went to a wedding and turned water into wine." The audience roared, but Johnny tried to keep a straight face. Then he said, "And what did you learn from that story?" The boy squirmed in his chair. It was apparent he hadn't thought about this. But then he lifted up his face and said, "If you're going to have a wedding, make sure you invite Jesus!" The little boy was on to something!

If you are going to have a wedding, make sure you invite Jesus! Weddings are so much better when Jesus is there! And that is true for many reasons. You can be sure that the couple in Cana were glad Jesus was there! The first of Jesus' wedding presents was his wedding presence! His just being there made their marriage special, as his being a part of your marriage makes it special. But at Cana, his presence wasn't the only present Jesus gave this couple. He also solves an embarrassing problem for them!

We need to understand something about Jewish weddings in those days. A wedding was not just a brief ceremony, but an experience shared by the entire community. The typical wedding feast could last up to seven days! That may sound strange to us, but it offered a bright interlude in an otherwise dreary existence. The ceremony would begin on Tuesday at midnight. After the wedding, the father of the bride would take his daughter to every house so that everyone might congratulate her. It was a community experience. Weddings were a time of joy!

At the wedding which Jesus attended in Cana, there was great joy, I'm sure, but a problem developed. There was a shortage of wine. Not only was that a social embarrassment, it was also a bad omen. To the Jewish people, wine symbolizes joy! For a wedding to run out of wine was an omen that there was little chance of this particular marriage reaching its full potential for joy. That maybe joy was not meant for this couple!

Have you seen the commercials showing someone with a mouth full of cookies, as the question was asked: "Got milk?" Well, the question in the story we have read today was: "Got wine?" And the answer was: "No!" The wine was gone! A miracle was needed to save the family, and the new couple, the ultimate embarrassment of not being able to provide enough for their friends. They would be forever remembered in this small village as the ones who failed to take care of the needs of their guests.

So Mary, Jesus' mother, approaches Him and asks Him to do something. Mary certainly showed faith here that Jesus could do something. It had been 30 years since the angel had spoken to her about who Jesus would be. What Mary remembered about that, along with the things she had witnessed as Jesus grew up, were enough to lead her to trust that Jesus could help here - she had faith that He could, and there is nothing wrong with that. But Mary wanted to fill an immediate need and avoid embarrassment, and she spoke to Jesus as his mother. Jesus, on the other hand, needed to reveal Himself as the Messiah to strengthen the faith of his disciples, and He spoke to Mary as her Savior.

At first glance, we might be puzzled at Jesus' response to his mother. "Why do you involve me?...my time is not yet come." But we have to look at this scene in its historical context. Jesus, at this moment, had not performed a single miracle. He was 30 years old, and He had just gathered his first disciples together. He knows that if He performs a miracle, the clock will start ticking and it will not stop until He gets to Calvary. Crowds will flock; detectives will be dispatched. Is this the appropriate moment? Well, that was a decision only Jesus could make - no one else could determine that for Him. There wasn't harshness or disrespect in his answer to Mary, but there was distance. No longer was this the mother & son relationship they had been in for 30 years. Jesus now had to be about his Father's business. And in this calling, Mary was not his mother, but a sinner who needed a Savior! Isn't that amazing for you and me? Jesus loves you and me just as much as his own mother!

So, Jesus, in his own time and way, makes his move and gives his first public sign that He is different; He turns water into wine. There are two interesting facts I want to mention about this miracle. First of all, when Jesus had the servants fill the water jars, they filled them to the brim! No room for anything else! There was no chance for trickery here! Jesus couldn't have slipped anything else in! The jars were full of water when the servants filled them, and then full of wine when the headwaiter tasted them. Secondly, the headwaiter tasted this new wine without knowing where it had come from! So, when he not only declared that he was drinking wine, but that it was the best wine, his opinion was completely unbiased! He couldn't believe they had saved the best for last! Jesus showed here that He is true God - this was a supernatural event that could only be performed by God!

So, when the wine ran short for this wedding couple, He helped them out of their embarrassing situation. He does the same for us. To the Jewish people, wine symbolized joy. The Jewish rabbis had a saying, 'Without wine there is no joy." At the wedding in Cana their "joy" had run out! In some ways, it is a reminder of the emptiness of our life without Christ. This statement by the mother of Jesus goes beyond liquid refreshment at a wedding. It is symbolic of our lives. It is a scary thing when the "wine runs out."

Earnest Hemmingway was a great storyteller. Many of his books are considered to be classics. He was a Nobel Prize recipient. He was a newspaper reporter and an ambulance driver during WWI. He was involved in the Spanish Civil War. He had friendships that ranged from authors to bullfighters. Whatever he did, he went for it all, and drank deeply at the "natural wine of life." But there came a day when those wines ran out and he took his life. There are times when the wine runs out. The joy is dry! The exuberance of the moment disappears.

It happens in our own lives. The wine runs out. We become strangers to ourselves and we have nowhere to go. What are you going to do when the wine runs out? It is a sad truth that we usually don't come to God until we have a need. Jesus was not approached until there was an emergency. We are the same way. We usually come when we have a need. Religion for most people is a 911 affair. Mary came to Jesus when the wine jars were empty. You will come too, but often not before you are drained, exhausted, and brought to wit's end by life's demands.

What are you going to do when the wine runs out? In our text, the phrase "wine was gone" comes from a word that means "lacking, to fall short, to run short, to fail." The wine had run short, fallen short. And that created a joyless, embarrassing situation. One that only Jesus could fix. Hasn't the joy "fallen short" in your life, too? Romans 3 tells us: "all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God." We have all fallen short! Not just in embarrassing social situations, but in our relationships with God! We have failed to supply what He was looking for in our lives. We have failed to be a good host to Him, when He shows up at the celebration of our lives. He comes to a party that is not going to bring Him joy. You and I have not brought God joy with the way we have lived our lives - with our thoughts, words, and actions. Our lack of faith! And so, when you and I stand before God on the last day in front of everyone else, if it is made very clear that we have fallen short, it will be most embarrassing and frightening!

But Jesus was at that wedding to restore what was lacking, and return the "joy" to their celebration. He does the same thing with our lives! The next verse in Romans says: "And [we] are justified freely by his grace through the redemption that came by Christ Jesus." Jesus has given us what we lacked! He has given us the righteousness God expects to find in our lives! He has given us the perfection He lived for us! He has made us right with God again! He restored the wine, the joy, back into our lives!

He also revealed his glory to strengthen our faith! Jesus chose the Cana wedding as the setting for his first miracle, the kick-off of his public ministry. To make the wine, Jesus had the servants fill the huge 30-gallon jugs standing nearby with water. These were the vessels that were used by observant Jews to fulfill the rules on ceremonial washing. Even a wedding feast had to honor the 1001 burdensome rituals of cleansing. Jesus, perhaps with a twinkle in his eye, transformed those jugs, ponderous symbols of the old way, into wineskins, harbingers of the new way. From purified water of the Pharisees came the choice new wine of a whole new era. The time for ritual cleansing had passed; the time for celebration had begun! Celebration, because we know that we now stand right with God, not because of our keeping of many rituals, or living perfect lives, but because of his grace, which was given to us through the life and death of Jesus! And so, He is the bringer of real "wine," real JOY, into our lives through forgiveness!

Imagine if a church member threw a party in the fellowship hall of a church building. While the crystal punch bowl is carried down the steps, it accidentally slips and smashes on the floor. Uncle Joe says, "Don't panic. I know something we can use." He goes up the stairs into the sanctuary, hoists the baptismal font over one shoulder, and carries it down to the fellowship hall. Then the caterers fill it with Canada Dry and cranberry juice. The font becomes a punch bowl! Get the picture? That was kind of what Jesus did behind the scenes at the wedding in Cana! He used the jars of the old way to usher in his ministry that would bring joy instead of despair!

He revealed his glory with a miraculous sign. There are 2 reasons Jesus performed the miracles He did in his ministry. The first was to reveal his glory - to show He is the actual Son of God. The second is to strengthen the faith of those who believe in Him. We witness Christ's miracles, and we can say to ourselves, "Yes, He must be who He claims to be!" The disciples already had faith that Jesus was the Son of God, but now at Cana this faith was deepened and reaffirmed. That is why his disciples shared these miraculous events with us in the Gospels. Later in this same book, John says: "Jesus did many other miraculous signs in the presence of his disciples, which are not recorded in this book. But these are written that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that by believing you may have life in his name."

When the master of the banquet tasted the water that Jesus had changed into wine, he said, "you have saved the best till now." He was surprised by this change in the normal custom of a wedding celebration. But knowing Jesus, are you surprised? I'm not! Jesus is always SAVING THE BEST TILL LAST! God always gives us the "lesser" or "inferior" first and the "best" last. Our lives here on earth, even when you are enjoying them, are nothing compared to the life waiting for us with God! We experience sorrow, failure, frustration, and guilt here. This really isn't the best wine. And it is running out!

But the BEST is still coming! The real wine, the real joy, is on its way! Jesus, through the most amazing miracle, has given us the best joy - forgiveness and restoration with God! And through faith, we can be sure of that now. But believe me, friends, the Best is yet to come! This wedding in Cana is really a little preview of the wedding banquet that we are all invited to in heaven! The one where the joy, the wine, never runs out! The one we will be at because of a miracle Jesus performed for us on the cross! The one we can look forward to our whole lives because Jesus is Saving the Best Till Last! Amen.

Back to the Epiphany page
Back to the Pastor's Messages page